


I Said No Roommates

by lexus_grey



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: D/s, F/F, Prison AU, but there will be a little dub-con just not the way you'd think, do not piss off the guards, do not touch Diyoza's property, dominant Diyoza, octavia and diyoza are cellmates, of course there will be some type of feels but rly this is meant for SMUTNESS, submissive-in-a-way Octavia, these tags are horrible, well it's sort of an au it's more like a blended u
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-23 03:10:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20333068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lexus_grey/pseuds/lexus_grey
Summary: Written late in response to The 100 Kink Meme for the prompt: Modern AU (or, Octavia existed pre-apocalypse) Diyoza gets a new cellmate, and decides to show the pretty young thing who's in charge.Full disclosure: I was all into the prompt and started writing before I saw the tags lol. So I am going to manage some dub-con in there. Maybe this is a loose interpretation of the entire prompt, but it will be multi chapter and I hope the OP likes it at least somewhat.





	1. Chapter 1

Charmaine Diyoza looked up sharply as her cell door opened. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. No.” But the guard ignored her and the cell door shut, leaving a new girl inside. Diyoza shot to her feet and approached the bars, rapping on them with her book. “Hey. Hey! I said no roommates!” she yelled.

“It’s a cell, not a room, and we don’t negotiate with terrorists,” the guard called back without turning around or bothering to stop. He did flip her the bird over his shoulder, though.

Diyoza turned back to the girl and nodded to the one empty corner of the cell. “You can sleep on the floor.”

Octavia Blake snorted. “There’s two beds.”

Diyoza dropped her book on the bottom bunk and leaned her forearms against the frame of the top one. “Yeah. They’re both mine.”

“I’m not sleeping on the floor,” Octavia insisted, undaunted. “Get out of the way.”

“Brave for a new girl,” Diyoza said, raising an eyebrow, and then quick as a flash her hand was wrapped around the girl’s throat, pinning her to the cell bars. Before she had time to do anything else a knee came up into her groin and fingernails dug so hard into the tendons of her wrist that she was forced to let go. Undeterred, she threw a left hook, connecting solidly with the girl’s cheek.

Octavia took the blow in stride and countered with one of her own, only she was using her dominant hand and she watched the other woman spit blood. She readied herself for another attack, knuckles throbbing, but she was mildly surprised when she got a grin instead.

“Very good. You passed the first test. Top bunk’s yours.” Diyoza took a few items off of said bunk and put them on the bottom, then hopped in and lay on her back, returning to her book.

Octavia stood there stunned stupid for a few seconds before her face closed off into something more neutral. “Don’t play fuckin’ games with me,” she hissed as she picked up the blankets she’d dropped and climbed up to the top bunk. It had been a long ride from the court house and she was exhausted. The last thing she needed was some alpha bitch playing mind games.

“Not a game,” Diyoza said casually as she flicked to the next page in her book. “I needed to see if you’d let me bully you.”

“And if I had?”

“I would’ve killed you.”

“God, it’s really nice to meet you,” Octavia said sarcastically.

“You won’t find God in here, honey,” Diyoza said with a smirk. “Well, unless you count those toothless fanatics that gather in the chapel every morning and claim they can see him. Are you one of those? You look like you have all your teeth.”

“Too bad I didn’t knock out any of yours,” Octavia muttered. “I’m fucking tired, I’m going to sleep.”

“If you can sleep with these fluorescents, God bless you…”

“Says the woman who just denounced the presence of God…”

“Touché.”

\--

Octavia sat with her cellmate at breakfast because it was the most appealing option. She supposed she could have sat by herself, but that’s what her cellmate was doing, and why should they both have a whole table to themselves?

“No,” Diyoza said, not looking up from her book.

“Go fuck yourself,” Octavia replied, pushing her eggs around on her tray with her fork. “Plastic forks, really?”

“Would you trust anyone in here with anything metal?” Diyoza asked, finally looking up, raising an eyebrow.

“Touché.”

“I’m still trying to figure out why they trusted me not to kill you.”

“I’m tougher than I look.”

Diyoza swiped a thumb across her bruised jaw and gave a noncommittal sort of grunt. “Figured that out last night. What are you in for? Maybe that’ll clear it up.”

“What is this, show and tell?” Octavia asked, a smirk tugging at one corner of her mouth.

Diyoza’s hand tightened around her toast until it was nothing but burnt crumbs. It wasn’t meant as a threat, but as a coping mechanism. “I told you, this isn’t a game. What are you in for?”

Octavia’s distaste showed on her face that her joke wasn’t appreciated. “You just keep getting better and better. I’m in for murder, okay?”

“How many counts?”

“I don’t remember what they said.”

“More than ten?”

“You think I can’t fucking count to ten? If I killed nine people would I forget the number?” Octavia asked derisively.

“So you’re a serial killer.” Diyoza put her book down and folded her arms across her chest, staring curiously across the table at this flawless specimen of fucked up that they’d thrown in with her.

“No. I don’t stalk children or kill people in their sleep. I guess you could think of it more as mass murder,” she said, tilting her head to the side.

“They all deserve it?”

The impassive look faltered for a split second before sliding back onto smooth features. “No.”

Diyoza nodded. “That’s why they put you in with me. You know who I am?”

“Everyone knows who you are.”

Something told Diyoza the girl was bluffing. “You don’t know who I am.”

“So tell me.”

Diyoza brushed the crumbs off the table and eyed the girl’s toast. “Give me your toast. You made me ruin mine.”

“Yours was burnt as shit, you weren’t going to eat that anyway.”

Diyoza held her hand out, palm up, halfway across the table. “Give. Me. Your toast,” she said, one eyebrow arching.

Octavia picked up her toast and ran the flat of her tongue over the side with butter, then tossed it onto the other woman’s tray.

“If you think that’s gonna make me not eat it, you won’t survive in here.”

“I only gave it to you because I want to know who I’m rooming with. Now spill.”

“My name is Charmaine Diyoza. They call me a terrorist.”

“You don’t look like a terrorist and you don’t look like a _Charmaine_.”

“Very intuitive. I go by Diyoza.”

“And the terrorist part?”

“That part’s true, depending on how you look at it.”

“How do you look at it?”

“I did what I had to do at the time. I don’t regret it.”

“The non-regret thing. They hate that,” Octavia said with a toothy grin that looked more barbaric than anything else.

“Maybe if I felt bad they’d downgrade me to terrorist lite.”

“Is that L-I-T-E or L-I-G-H-T?”

“L-I-T-E.”

“Good choice.”

Suddenly an alarm went blaring so loud that Octavia initially covered her ears out of complete shock.

“What the fuck is that?”

“That alarm means a weapon’s gone missing. Please tell me it wasn’t you.”

“I forgot to mention my jacking skills?”

“Jesus Christ, kid, give it to me, right now. Before the administration gets here.”

“That’d be a no.”

“You don’t understand,” Diyoza hissed. “They will strip search every single one of us until they find it, and if you’re caught with it you’ll wish you were dead.”

Something about the terror in the other woman’s eyes alerted Octavia to the fact that she had jumped in the water without checking for sharks, and she reached into her underwear, handing over the pocket knife under the table.

Diyoza shot a silent prayer skyward and put the knife on the floor, under her boot. When the guards were looking elsewhere she kicked it across the floor, the still blaring alarm masking the sound of metal on concrete.

“Hey! There it is!” one of the guards shouted, running over to pick it up. Once he had it safely in his hand he radioed in and the alarm cut off. “Where did this come from?” he asked the room at large.

Nobody would rat on Diyoza even if they had seen where it came from. Not a single one of them. Not after the first three times she’d killed snitches with her bare hands. That was three years ago, and there’d never been a fourth.

Octavia wasn’t sure why Diyoza didn’t look worried, but when no one spoke up, she realized how much power her cellmate really had.

\--

When they were back in their cell and the door clicked shut, Diyoza spun on the girl. “If you ever do something that stupid again, I will kill you,” she warned in a low voice. “And I don’t have qualms about doing it in your sleep.”

Octavia was tough, and prideful, but she wasn’t an idiot and she didn’t have a death wish. “Copy that.”

Diyoza grabbed her arm. “I’m serious.”

Octavia jerked her arm free, only to have it grabbed again, impossibly strong fingertips feeling like a blood pressure cuff, cutting off the circulation. “Yeah. I got that,” she tried again. “Get off me.”

Diyoza held her for a few seconds longer, just to the point of bruising, and then abruptly let go. “If I grab you, little girl, it means I have something important for you to learn, so you’d better shut the fuck up, stand still and take it. Are we clear?”

“You think because I let you have my toast that I’m gonna let you knock me around?”

“No, I think because every inmate in this prison answers to me that you’re gonna let me knock you around,” Diyoza answered smoothly.

“The fuck I will.”

“You will fall in line or I won’t offer you any protection.”

“I don’t need protection,” Octavia scoffed. “Maybe you weren’t listening at breakfast? Or last night when I almost broke your face?”

“Have you ever gone unarmed against a group of twenty? How about fifty? Seventy-five? No one’s that badass, not even me. So don’t try me.” She went to turn away and stopped at the last second, leaning in closer instead. “And by the way… last night? I let you get those hits in. Like I said, it was a test. If I didn’t want you to hit me, you couldn’t.”

Octavia let out a howl of rage and rushed forward, ramming her shoulder into Diyoza’s chest. Or at least that was the plan, but she found herself on the ground, staring at a crack in the concrete. How the fuck? Now she was just angry. She got to her feet, attacking again, blind fury fueling her movements. She was a skilled fighter, but everyone had always said she lacked discipline. That she fought with her heart, not with her head.

Diyoza easily dodged the girl’s advances, and when she’d had enough-meaning that the girl had almost gotten a hit in-she grabbed her around the back of the neck and twisted an arm up behind her back, forcing her over the bottom bunk and half laying on top of her. “That’s enough,” she barked.

“Go float yourself!” Octavia shouted, struggling for all she was worth, but unable to break the hold.

“Now that’s original,” Diyoza said calmly, tightening her hold.

Octavia threw her head back in an attempt to head butt her cellmate, but all it accomplished was to get a hand moved from her neck to her hair, shoving her face hard into the mattress. She had no other means to escape with one arm pinned underneath her and the other twisted behind her back. She knew the panic was going to set in any second and she tried to hold it off, but she soon felt the rapid, shallow breaths and the blurring of her vision that signaled the start of an attack. “Let me up,” she gasped, her stomach lurching violently. Sweat dripped down her forehead and the back of her neck, her vision closing off even further until all she could see was a pinprick of clarity surrounded by static. She sucked in a staggering breath but her lungs didn’t feel like they’d gotten any oxygen at all. It was so hot. She needed out of her jumpsuit.

Diyoza realized the girl wasn’t bluffing and she quickly released her, stepping a few feet away.

Octavia registered it in the back of her mind, but the switch had already been flipped and there was no turning it off. She’d have to ride it out. She alternated between grunting and wheezing as she flipped onto her back and struggled to get her jumpsuit unzipped with hands she couldn’t currently see. “Get it off. Get it off!” she begged, trying to shrug her shoulders out of it to no avail.

Diyoza blinked when she realized the girl was speaking to her directly, and despite her irritation she sprang into action, stripping the girl out of her jumpsuit and socks, tossing the garments on the foot of the bottom bunk.

That helped her breathe the slightest bit easier and she reached out blindly, grabbing Diyoza’s arm. “Water. Get me to the sink,” she said desperately.

Diyoza led her over and turned on the tap, putting one of the girl’s hands under the flow of water so she’d know where it was.

Octavia wasted no time leaning over and putting her head under the water. Cold was the only thing that could help her calm down. Otherwise this could last for minutes to hours and she would go out of her fucking mind.

As the water drenched her face and hair and slid down her neck, she slowly started to regain some of her vision and she was able to pull a full breath. A few minutes later and she was calm, but then came the aftermath, which she didn’t want her cellmate to see. She shut off the water and quickly lay on the bottom bed facing the wall, hoping she wouldn’t be asked any questions.

Diyoza watched with detached interest, and when the girl was clearly not feeling the need to discuss the incident, she smirked, bent down so her hair barely brushed a naked shoulder, and cleared her throat. “Nice rack.”

Octavia let out a snort of laughter. Somehow that was the perfect thing for her cellmate to say to ease her tension. “I’m sure yours ain’t bad either,” she said quietly.

“I don’t go around stripping off my clothes so you may never know,” the colonel said with a chuckle, straightening up slowly. “You’re in my bed.”

“Can I just have a minute?”

Diyoza slid her arms beneath the girl’s knees and shoulders and lifted her easily, depositing her on the top bunk. “No.”

Octavia couldn’t help a tiny squeak of surprise at being picked up, and if they hadn’t already gone rounds resulting in her having a panic attack she might have taken a swing for that. As it was, she frowned and rolled back over to face the wall once she was in her own bed.

\--

Things went smoothly for a few days, meaning her cellmate managed to keep her head down and Diyoza didn’t need to talk sense into her or save her from her own stupidity. Saturday mornings she had court-appointed therapy, and when she got back to their cell her eyes widened at the state of her cellmate, bruised and bloody on the floor next to the beds. “What the fuck,” she breathed, taking a knee beside the girl to see if she was conscious.

Octavia groaned and turned to look at Diyoza, the taste of blood strong in her mouth. “M’fine,” she mumbled.

“Like hell you are,” Diyoza volleyed, grabbing up one of her shirts and running it under the faucet to make a cold compress. She returned to the girl and carefully laid the compress on the right side of her face, where most of the injuries were.

“D’no who did it,” Octavia mumbled again.

“I know who did it,” Diyoza said darkly, her eyes narrowing as she held the compress to the girl’s face. “Only one left-handed bitch in this prison who would want to fuck you up. I’ll handle it.”

“What’s that mean, you’ll handle it?” Octavia asked, concerned, lifting up her head despite the throbbing pain.

Diyoza picked her up again and laid her on the bottom bunk this time, putting the compress back on her face. “It means I’ll handle it. Hold this here,” she said, indicating the shirt.

Octavia raised a shaking hand, which was the only sign of how unnerved everything was making her, and held the makeshift compress in place.

Diyoza would have snapped the bitch’s neck herself, but that would put her in solitary for fuck knows how long, and her cellmate would be a target. So… she’d have to delegate. She stepped out of her cell and headed for the common room, had a quick conversation with her girl Ford, and then returned to her injured cellmate.

“What’d you do?” Octavia groaned.

Diyoza sat on the bed beside her and gave her a scolding look. “Don’t need to worry about that. But listen, I can’t keep calling you ‘the girl’ in my head, so how about telling me your name.”

Octavia almost laughed when she realized she hadn’t done that already. “Octavia.”

“Wait a minute.” How many Octavias could there be? “Octavia Blake?”

“How th’fuck d’you know that?”

“They call you Skairipa. No fucking clue what that means, but it sounds deadly.”

“It is deadly. Soon’s I can see straight I plan to prove it.”

“What does it mean? Skairipa?”

“Means death from above.”

“Nice. I like it. It’s got flair. What language is it?”

“Trigedasleng.”

“Right. How could I not know that?”

Octavia nearly rolled her eyes. “Turns out some people survived on the ground. It’s their language. Our language,” she corrected herself. She considered herself more a grounder than Skaikru.

“And they call you death from above, huh? You must’ve made quite the impression.”

“I didn’t just fall out of the sky killing people,” Octavia frowned. “I had to adapt. So I did. End of story.”

“I’m not judging,” Diyoza said, holding her hands up in mock surrender. “Terrorist, remember?”

Their conversation was interrupted by shrill screams from down the corridor, and Diyoza allowed a satisfied grin to twitch at her lips.

“Somebody killed Shayza!” a redhead was screaming, running down the hall towards the guard station.

Octavia reached over and gave Diyoza’s thigh a sharp pinch. “You didn’t have to do that. I was going to kill her myself.”

“Then you’d be in solitary and who would keep me company?”

Octavia could sense it was something more than that, but she wasn’t one for emotional displays so she didn’t bother pushing the issue. “I don’t like owing people.”

“All you owe me is to stay off the guards’ radar,” Diyoza dismissed the notion. “I’ll let you handle the others if you promise not to get caught.”

“What others?”

“Please, Octavia,” Diyoza trilled on a laugh. “Do you really expect me to believe that Shayza did that without five or six girls holding you down?”

Octavia tried to smirk but it came out as a grimace. “Seven, I think. But who’s counting?”

\--

They actually agreed to split up the work. Octavia took four of the girls and Diyoza took three. Over the next week, Octavia learned everything about each of the four she’d chosen. Everything. She watched and waited, bided her time until she could handle things in a way that would shake out well.

She made sure one of them got something in her food that would cause anaphylaxis. One of them was in for theft, so she swiped another pocketknife and slipped it into the girl’s pocket. Diyoza had read her the riot act for that one, but it went smoothly so she wasn’t inclined to listen. The last two were easy because they were girlfriends. A carefully penned love letter slid under one’s pillow sparked a battle royale. One of them was dead and the other was tossed in solitary, to be dealt with later.

Diyoza handed off her three to Ford, Becca and Maya, knowing they would be discrete.

\--

That night after lights out Octavia crawled down from her bunk and sat on the edge of Diyoza’s bed. “You didn’t have to do this for me,” she said quietly.

“You’re not trying to owe me anything, are you?” Diyoza asked, raising an eyebrow. Octavia visiting her bed in the middle of the night was a first.

“Are you kidding? You said I don’t owe you; why would I argue that? I’m just… grateful.” Now that was a word she hadn’t said in her entire life.

“Haven’t said that very often, huh? You almost mispronounced it,” Diyoza teased.

“I’m sorry I caused you trouble.”

“Fuck off.” The colonel rolled her eyes and went to turn toward the wall, intent on getting some sleep.

Octavia laid a hand on her arm, tugging to keep her from turning away. “I think you should teach me a lesson. I’m ready to listen.”

“That is a really horrible idea,” Diyoza breathed, trying not to react to all the possibilities such a thing could present.

“My face is healed. I can take whatever you have in mind,” Octavia insisted.

“Our minds are not on the same track,” the colonel murmured.

“They are,” Octavia promised. “I just didn’t want to assume. But when I say I can take whatever you have in mind, I mean carte blanche.”

A shiver snaked up Diyoza’s spine but you wouldn’t know it to look at her. “That is even worse. That is the worst idea you have ever had in your life.”

“Worse than the idea that ended me up in here?” Octavia smirked.

“Yes.”

The way Diyoza was looking at her was probably supposed to make her second guess herself, but it achieved the opposite and it made her wet. She inhaled sharply through her nose and held the colonel’s gaze for a few long moments before casting her eyes a fraction downward.

“You are a very stupid girl,” Diyoza exhaled, though she didn’t really mean it. “I don’t use safewords. You think you’re ready to listen, but you have no idea.”

There were a million things Octavia wanted to say; a million challenges she wanted to issue. But she knew what topping from the bottom was, so she didn’t. She cast her eyes slightly further downward, letting her head bow barely an inch.

“I’m not going to ask you what your limits are because I will do whatever I want with you,” Diyoza continued trying to warn her off. The thought of having this pretty young thing on her knees, literally and figuratively, was quite the draw, but she had to provide an out. Or seven. “I will fuck you in front of the guards. In front of the other inmates. I will have you on your knees, eating scraps from my hand in the mess hall. I will put things in your ass that you didn’t know existed. I will—”

“Please,” Octavia whispered, her voice shaking with need. She had gone from amused to turned on to a genuine feel of submissiveness, a desire to please, to be controlled, to be stripped of the power she had built up in herself and forced to find herself all over again.

Diyoza decided to test the waters and sat up to slap Octavia’s face, hard. “Do not interrupt me.” Moment of truth.

Octavia cried out in surprise but did nothing to retaliate, the sting blooming in her cheek just making her wetter. Her hair fell in front of her face when she dropped her chin, and she stayed still, focusing on forcing even breaths.

Diyoza felt entirely too good doing that. It had been a long time since she had a little bitch. Having no cellmate and being fairly antisocial made that difficult. And she hadn’t wanted the responsibility for a long time, so she’d been happy with that. Now… she was ready for a change. She was ready for the old days. Octavia brought out her dominant nature, and strangely enough also her nurturing one. The coming days she was sure those two aspects of her psyche would be constantly at odds. “Take off your clothes.”

Face still throbbing mildly, Octavia rose to her feet and unzipped her jumpsuit, shrugging out of it and pushing it down her legs. She folded it and set it on her bunk, then stripped out of the stupid little sports bra—because who was going to give a convicted murderer a clasp and underwire?—and set it on top of her jumpsuit. She wasn’t wearing socks, so that left her panties. She pushed them down and added them to the pile, then stood with her hands clasped lightly behind her back. She could feel Diyoza’s eyes on her skin like a caress; a burning caress. She had never had a problem with her body, and especially with the way Diyoza looked at her, confidence would not be an issue. She stood proudly, but not cocky. Tall, but not arrogant. And yes, her heart was racing.

“Were those wet?” Diyoza asked, flicking a finger up toward the last item to be added to the pile.

Talking was harder than obeying with her body. She swallowed, the cords in her neck working overtime, and closed her eyes. “Yes.”

Diyoza’s eyes became even more predatory, if that were possible, and she slid her tongue between her teeth as she regarded the girl. “Are you lying?”

Nostrils flared at the accusation but she figured she was being tested in multiple ways. “No,” she answered simply.

Diyoza nodded, then pointed up at Octavia’s clothes again. “Good. Now get your shit off my bed.”

Octavia chewed the inside of her cheek to hold back a scoff, took a second to adjust to her new reality, then reached for her clothes and the book she’d borrowed from the library. She didn’t bother to try taking a blanket because she instinctively already knew how that would turn out. She put the book under the bottom bunk and then spread her jumpsuit out on the floor next to the beds.

“You can earn the bunk back,” Diyoza informed her. “Now put some socks on and go to sleep.”

“Socks?” she asked before she could stop herself. It was just too strange of a command for her to process without questioning whether she’d heard right.

“That was your one freebie,” Diyoza said with a tiny smirk. “Put on a pair of socks and go to sleep.”

Octavia still found it strange, but maybe the colonel liked naked women in socks? Though she did think she remembered something from Earth skills about heat leaving your body through your head and your feet, so maybe this was Diyoza’s way of keeping her warm without a blanket. Socks. As if that would be good enough to warm her up. The idea was ridiculous, but she pulled on a pair anyway and stretched out on her jumpsuit. Funnily enough, it wasn’t the most uncomfortable place she’d ever slept. She had literally slept on rocks in a cave because of acid rain and she had slept in a fucking tree because she was high off her mind on Jobi Nuts. She hadn’t been naked either of those times, but what was one more variable?


	2. Chapter 2

Octavia woke up the next morning underneath a blanket, and before she could say anything, Diyoza beat her to it.

“The less you ask for, the more you’ll get.” At Octavia’s intrigued silence, she moved into a crouch on the floor, slid a hand behind the girl’s neck and lifted her far enough to kiss her forehead. “I like being trusted to take care of my women.”

Octavia wasn’t sure what to expect but she managed not to flinch at Diyoza’s approach. She was pleasantly surprised by the kiss, her eyes fluttering closed as she relaxed. “How did you know I was awake?” She hadn’t moved or opened her eyes before Diyoza had spoken.

Diyoza smirked and moved back to sit on the edge of her bed. “Your breathing changed.”

“I’ve never met anyone like you,” Octavia confessed a moment later. “The grounders are warriors, but even they aren’t quite like you."

“Grounders being the people that survived the apocalypse?”

Octavia nodded. "There’s twelve clans, each under their own leaders but all under one commander. I was about to be the next commander when I got snatched up by the fucking space police.”

“Space police,” Diyoza nearly snorted, shaking her head. “I suppose that’s accurate in description even if not in name.”

“I don’t care what they’re called,” Octavia said sourly. “Fascists.”

“That they are,” Diyoza agreed. She scooted back to make room for Octavia and patted the space in front of her. “Come here. Bring your blanket.”

Again, Octavia wasn’t sure what to expect, but she climbed into bed with the older woman, covering them with her blanket.

Diyoza rolled on her back and stared at the top bunk with a sigh. “There’s something I’m guessing you’re not going to want to talk about, but I need to know and it’s not negotiable.”

Octavia’s entire body tensed rigid. “What?” she asked through clenched teeth.

“Why did you have a panic attack?”

Octavia rolled onto her side facing away from Diyoza. “I felt trapped.”

“Why did feeling trapped cause a panic attack?”

Octavia’s pulse kicked up a notch and she tried to keep her breathing even. “You’re right. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I need to know,” Diyoza pressed her. “It’s not just that I want to know. It’s necessary given the type of relationship we’re aimed at.”

Octavia battled with herself for long minutes, then decided she’d just relay the short version and be done with it. “I grew up under the floor. On the ark… there was a strict one-child policy. I was my mom’s second. I spent most of my time literally under the floorboards. When I cried my mom or my brother had to hold me down and cover my mouth. When I was a teenager they found me and floated my mom, and I went to the sky box. So I guess this is my second time in prison. And that’s it.”

Diyoza was stunned silent for a good few seconds before she just said, “shit.” Maybe someday Octavia would open up more about it, but for now, the girl had done as she asked, and that was good enough. “It’s going to be really important, then, that you don’t do anything to get put in solitary. Understand? It’s cold and dark in there, and you’re utterly alone.”

Octavia swallowed hard and nodded, instinctively scooting backwards to be closer to Diyoza. “Copy that.”

“I owe you a spanking for the second time you lifted a knife from the guards,” Diyoza said after they laid there quietly for a bit.

“I don’t think you can retroactive that,” Octavia said with a frown, keeping her external systems cool even though the thought of it made her stomach twitch and her heart race.

“I think I can do whatever I want,” Diyoza laughed. “I already told you that when you signed on for this adventure.”

“Yeah, but how would it look if I didn’t at least try to get out of it?” Octavia asked hopefully.

“It would look like you got fifty less smacks than you’re now going to get,” Diyoza answered casually.

“Fuck,” Octavia swore under her breath. “I’ve never been, so… what if I like it?”

“You’re going to kill me,” Diyoza muttered. “I’ll make sure you don’t like it this time.”

That did not sound promising and Octavia’s heart skipped. “What am I supposed to do?” She would at least try to behave.

“First take your socks off. It makes you look too young,” Diyoza instructed, slowly sitting up and swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

“I thought old ladies liked that,” Octavia teased as she sat up and wrangled her socks off, dropping them on the floor.

“Oh my God,” Diyoza said incredulously.

“What now?”

“Stop asking questions; I’ll tell you what to do,” Diyoza informed her. “Lay across my lap. Keep your knees up on the bed so your weight is distributed evenly. You’ll be more comfortable that way.”

“Suddenly you’re worried about my comfort when you’re about to beat my ass?” Octavia poked at her as she complied with the directive, stretching out over Diyoza’s lap and wiggling to get comfortable. Surprisingly, it actually _was_ comfortable. Very much so. She especially liked the feel of the colonel’s strong thighs pressing into her naked belly.

“You might want to stop antagonizing me now,” Diyoza suggested, wrapping her left arm around Octavia’s waist.

“Sorry,” Octavia breathed, tensing up again now that it was really about to happen. “First time jitters, I think.”

Diyoza took that for what it was, running her hand over Octavia’s perfect ass before lifting it and bringing it down hard.

The first smack caused the air to leave her lungs in a rush, and she carefully sucked in a breath to replace it. It hurt. It stung in a weird way; the pain wasn’t unpleasant. And as the initial sting faded and another smack landed, combining dull and sharp sensations, she didn’t need to question if she liked it. A soft moan escaped and she pressed her thighs tightly together. “You said I wasn’t going to like it,” she gasped when a third smack fell.

Diyoza turned her head and coughed into her shoulder, biting down on it to keep from laughing, mostly at herself. Of course she had to choose a punishment that Octavia would end up enjoying. She should have known the little shit would be into spanking. “I’m spanking you pretty damn hard. You like it?” she asked, landing several more stinging slaps in a row, targeting the same spot repeatedly.

Octavia gasped again, and the repeated smacks felt even better than the solitary ones, sensitizing her skin in a way that nothing ever had before. “More. Please,” she asked, squeezing her hands into fists.

Diyoza obliged with the same set on Octavia’s other cheek but then stopped. “This is not supposed to be a reward. You did something stupid and dangerous.”

Octavia groaned, arching her back. The pain blooming through her ass was exquisite and she briefly wondered why she hadn’t made any of her other lovers do this. “Please don’t stop,” she begged. “I’m sorry… I swear to keep my hands in my own pockets. I swear…”

“What did I tell you when you first woke up?” Diyoza leaned over and whispered into her ear. “The less you ask for, the more you’ll get. Put your clothes on, it’s almost time for breakfast.”

Octavia lay there breathing hard for a few moments, trying to get herself under control. She was frustrated and embarrassed, neither of which would bode well for her if she didn’t keep a lid on it. She forced out a slow exhale through gritted teeth, then breathed back in through her nose. She didn’t trust herself to speak without hurling insults so she got up in silence and got dressed.

Diyoza watched her fume silently as she got dressed, impressed when she didn’t end up saying something rude. If she were in Octavia’s position she wouldn’t have been able to control her mouth. “Octavia,” she said once the girl was dressed and stood facing away from her.

“What,” Octavia barked.

“It’s too important to me that you don’t pickpocket the guards to let it slide,” she tried to explain. “At breakfast I’ll show you why.”

Octavia was still irritated but she managed not to shrug off the touch when Diyoza laid a hand on her arm. “Yeah,” she said, unimpressed. Pride was a hard beast to tame and it was flaring hot at the moment. It was bad enough to be reduced to begging for something so quickly, but to then be shut down on top of that? Not easy.

Diyoza could have forced the issue but she was pretty sure Octavia would understand after she’d seen the resulting carnage firsthand.

\--

After they got their food and sat at their usual table, Diyoza nodded toward one end of the mess hall. “Take a walk with me. No one’ll touch our trays.”

Octavia shoved a forkful of eggs into her mouth before she stood up to follow Diyoza. They rounded the corner into a section of the hall that she hadn’t been in yet and she stopped in her tracks. There was a woman on one bench being held up by another woman standing behind her while a third was spoon feeding her.

Diyoza pointed out the same situation at a few other tables, then tugged Octavia back around the corner out of sight before speaking in a low voice. “That’s what happens when you get caught stealing from the guards. They don’t just torture you, they fuck with your brain. Do you really get me now?”

Octavia was overwhelmed with the knowledge that the guards had that kind of power, that they would actually use it, and that her cellmate was worried about it happening to her. She let out a shuddering breath and leaned against Diyoza, pressing her forehead to the other woman’s shoulder. Trembling hands laid on Diyoza’s waist and she clung there in a moment of weakness, trying to process everything. Finally she nodded and cleared her throat. “I get you,” she said, sincerely this time. “I’ll never do it again, no matter what. You have my word.”

Diyoza breathed a little easier and put her arms around Octavia, giving her a squeeze. “Okay. Good. Then we shouldn’t have to discuss it anymore.”

As they headed back to their table, Octavia remembered something and stumbled awkwardly over her words. “Last night you said—am I—what—are you really going to make me sit on the floor?”

“_Kneel_ on the floor, and eat scraps from my hand,” Diyoza corrected her. “And yes. I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

Octavia’s face flushed and she reminded herself that this relationship dynamic had been her idea. Diyoza had been up front about what it would be like. They were at their table all too soon and she stood staring at her tray.

Diyoza sat down and snapped her fingers, pointing at the floor beside her. “Down,” she said simply.

Octavia’s eyes went from her tray to the floor, making sure she didn’t look at anyone as she slowly lowered herself to her knees beside her cellmate. Her cheeks were burning but the twist in her stomach wasn’t all bad. And when Diyoza offered her a piece of ham, she opened her mouth and took it.


End file.
